The real stories from inside the F1 paddock

An interesting appointment

When Gerhard Berger left the role of president of the FIA’s Single-Seater Commission it was pretty clear that he do so because he did not wish to get into conflict with Bernie Ecclestone. Berger sorted out a new Formula 4 and bashed Formula 3 into some shape with a European series. But Formula 2 was not something that he wanted to go near. That is not a surprise. A serious Formula 2 championship would, inevitably, be seen as a challenge as to GP2, which is very obviously over-priced. If one looks at the books of GP2 Motorsport Ltd one sees that it makes a substantial profit on its turnover, which means that it is basically there to earn money rather than being a promotional formula. When it was introduced in 2005 it was dressed up as being a cost-effective alternative to the FIA’s Formula 3000. It quickly became clear that it was anything but that. The series had control over the pricing of the parts, which were forced upon the teams at around twice the price that they might have been able to find in the marketplace. The teams were soon complaining that the series was more expensive than Formnula 3000 and that it cost them $1.3 million to run two cars competitively. The
big advantage was that GP2 enjoyed was that it boasted a solid TV package and exposure at the F1 races because the series was owned by Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore and later by the Formula One group. The TV companies were encouraged to commit to taking GP2 coverage even if they did not really want it, as part of their deals to cover Formula 1. Today the cost of running a competitive two-car GP2 programme is reckoned to be around $4 million, although Red Bull’s Helmut Marko has claimed that the budget required for a top drive today is $6.4 million. A number of the F1 driver development schemes, notably Red Bull, have deserted GP2 in favour of the Renault World Series, which is seen as being much better value for money, even if it lacks the same level of coverage as GP2.

The profiteering has wreaked havoc with the competitors and only four of the original 12 teams from 10 years ago are still in the championship and the quality of the drivers involved is often questioned because the fast young drivers in F1 today, such as Daniel Riccardo, Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen and Daniil Kvyat have all reached F1 by other routes. These two championships are currently exploiting the participants to the tune of around 25 percent more than necessary and a more cost-efficient Formula 2 would be a far better idea to ensure that the best best youngsters would be getting to F1, rather than those who have the most money.

Berger and Ecclestone go back a long way and it is clear that Berger had no appetite for a fight. Putting Stefano Domenicali in charge of the Single Seater Commission is a good idea. He was less in Mr E’s awe. A good appointment.

The last Formula 2 with Palmer Audi engines was something good that was quite cheap and enjoyable. Why was it torn down? Had Ecclestone something to do with it as it was in the same league as GP2??

And the engine contract of Mecachrome ends in 2016. Are there new engines planned for GP2, maybe the bi-turbo V6 Christian Horner is wanting for Formula 1?? The V8 engines they currently use are somehow outdated…..

Mike: Not quite, no. If I remember correctly, Briatore set up another company called Supertec (or something like that) which then bought/leased the engines from Mecachrome and then passed them onto the F1 team customer(s).

I would hardly call the recent F2 a GP2 competitor – I’m not sure if it was even close to GP3. The only driver of much note to come from it was Jolyon Palmer, who had an obvious reason for competing in it!

And there was me thinking Domenicali was working on the VW F1 evaluation and was quoted in the German press as not wanting a job in Motorsport any longer but to be working in the mobility and serviceability sectors of the industry.

You just can’t believe anything unless it appears in front of your eyes, just as it ever was it seems…

Everything Ecclestone and his cronies touch is overpriced and only lasts in the short term. Surely somebody has to stand up to this man bleeding every part of the Sport he touches, there is only so long the sport will survive in a competitive form while he stays in charge. Everything is tainted in the same overpriced way, television fees, Gp2 and GP3, circuit advertising, hospitality and circuit owners to name a few, the same few continually benefit to the loss of the sport. When are the FIA going to come clean and stand up to Bernie and CVC and the few teams they look after? The sport if you can call it that, most would say business needs to change rapidly in the near future before it completely looses it’s heritage!

What is the point of Formula 4 if the route to top level motor sport jumps straight from karts to F3 or Formula Renault 2.0L? When was the last time an F1 driver emerged from a class such as Formula Ford?

The new rules requiring two years of participation in junior categories to qualify for a Superlicence may give a boost to F4 and F3. I hope so. I hope that racing there is cheap-ish too.

Yet another article bearing testimony to the far-reaching tentacles of one Bernie E. Oh how I long for the day when F1 escapes his miss-guided (it’s all about the $$) domination!!!
My 50 yr affair with F1 includes several years as a member of R.C.A. (Race Communications Ass’n, the org. whose members were the corner workers during the wonderful years at Watkins Glen, NY, USA). When not bearing sad witness to the untimely fates of drivers like Francois Cevert and Helmuth Koenig, we loved spending evenings in the Kendall Tech Center (watching mechanics rebuilding torn up racers) or rubbing elbows with some beautiful people at the Glen Motor Lodge. While many good things have happened in the sport since the days at the Glen, (drivers are safer, more countries host races, the technolgies are fascinating) the undeniable facts of shrinking TV viewership, lower at-race attendance and race teams in receivership are a clear indicator of the current health of the sport! In the days when The Glen, Ste Jovite and Mosport hosted races a fans devotion to the sport mattered more than the size of his wallet and no one cared if you wore are Rolex; owner / racers like Black Jack Brabham could enter and compete; those were the day’s when the sport was for the every-man (and women) and B.E.’s quest for uncontested control and (more) cash was not jeopardizing the future of the sport on a daily basis.

Joe, your writings should be “required reading” for all of today’s F1 fans; you are not afraid to tell it like it is and we know if you had your way, much that threatens the series today would quickly become yesterday’s news.. keep up the good work, it IS important!!!

When you said Watkins Glen, it reminded me of a rant I had – in spite of the existence of such great circuits, Mr. Ecclestone had to get a multimillion dollar circuit made for the US Grand Prix…no one seems to bother about this greed, particularly the FIA…

The prob with Watkins Glen is it is in the middle of nowhere. It’s no prob to can a bunch of die hard fan to camp for the weekend. BUT it’s a BIG BIG problem to get high end corporate guests to come to the race. The sponsors of the sport want a combination of TV exposure and things for high end guests ( and their partners) to do.
So it’s yes please to NY metro and no thanks to upstate NY.
The sport needs a venue to work both on a sporting and a money level. It’s sad to say but only a very few pure sporting venues can be sported each year( think Spa) and a few pure money venues have to be tolerated ( most of the sandy tracks).

yes, for sure The Glen is remote and probably many of the Rolex clan would not appreciate a miles-long view of lakes and fall foliage on a warm October afternoon; ergo the migration of the sports base. Problem is the pure fans who really know and love the sport may well be less in number and much less comfortable in the crowded, noisy venues like suburban NYC / New Jersey. And by the way, where would you put the “bog”, the vineyards and the natural Finger Lakes beauty an any multi-million population “Berg”. Nary the twain shall meet but I still believe “historic sporting tracks” offer the potential for a far better race show (and yes, unfortunately far less of the “green” that now greases the wheels of the sport) than any temporary street circuit on the banks of any river or around any former Olympic site…!!

My job involves giving advice on executive pay so I am not unfamiliar with people who earn lots of money and who, in some cases, would like to earn even more.

But this individual is on another level altogether. And whilst he has a number of accomplishments to his credit, he didn’t invent or found something. He hasn’t even run a business employing hundreds of thousands of people and turning over 10s of billions of dollars.

To me the problems lie elsewhere. I believe, in very general terms, he built up F1 using lots of fixed medium and long term deals, contracts and secrecy (wheeler dealing). He got away with it during the good growth years and built a reputation on the back of this. He did cash in his stake though.

Further power was lost as a result of recent court cases and now he seems powerless and the empire he built doesn’t seem able to do short term changes and is devoid of trust. This, at a time when the business model looks like it needs to change from one of mega-growth to one more tuned for gentler growth or, even, sustainability.

No, what’s needed is a more skilled operator and not the person who set-up today’s mess years ago. Whether he’s nice or not, I don’t know – it’s probably not something he measures himself on.

Even 2m USD is quite higher that the real going rate of a top GP2 drive, let alone the sum quoted by Marko. But yes GP2 has long suffered from unreasonable pricing of spare parts. It used to be worse but doesn’t mean that it is ok now.

It’s not just an Ecclestone-driven phenomenon, this junior formulae hustle. I remember that, after Gilles Villeneuve got to F1 from Formula Atlantic in N. America, many hoped to follow, and the predators quickly took advantage. F-Atlantic became a semi-spec series, involving sealed engines and exclusive parts suppliers charging super-inflated prices. The head of the SCCA (at the time still a power in American racing) told me flatly, “Formula Atlantic is a ripoff.” A friend, who’d worked for the UOP Shadow Can-Am team, gave me his general interpretation of the happenings: “Racing people know that the customer base is pretty small, with high turnover; so when they see you coming, they know they’ve gotta take you for what you’ve got, quick.”

You didn’t mention Stefano Domenicali until the second to the last sentence. Interesting use of the passive voice.
One person wrote that BE didn’t make anything, yet I have seen him in F1 since the 70’s IIRC. He helped build F1 up, didn’t he?

“Don’t you ever get bored with news stories with the story in the first line? I do…”
It was an excellent piece. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
As someone else suggested a while ago… “You should become a writer.” LOL
I hope you’re enjoying the second silly season this year.

I read that the mode in Japanese academic papers is to present conclusions or results first. I should like to be corrected if someone will, as I’m not certain by any means, I guess I consider abstracts to fulfill much the same function., but maybe less forthrightly. Shirley if reading in “red top” tabloid, Brit style, one takes the headlines to be the red herring… I always thought the guilty pleasure in reading the Daily Mail, or what have you, was the reward of non sequiturs, seemingly designed to discombobulate attempts at inferring libel or defamation, as the prose elongates..

Welcome back JoJ, we’ve missed you! Just a note on UK papers, if you read any of them, be they broadsheet or red top, you will find that they are all biased either to the Left or to the Right. There is no UK paper that I’ve ever read that does not follow this pattern and that just provides neutral views of the facts in any article. It always makes me laugh when people sneer at the Mail or Express or Times, for instance, and then quote something from the Guardian as Gospel Truth….the Guardian is so Left Wing that it might as well call itself the Labour Paper. At least those such as the Sun don’t pretend that they are not Right Wing publications.

Hi there, David & thanks for your kindness! It’s good to have the time to be around, again. Some of life’s travails unfortunately just take up more and more attention, until you wonder where you just came from.. I put it all down to a dubious experiment in aversion therapy to the “real world”, anything in inverted commas yet to be defined 🙂

I’ve quietly harbored a desire to be proprietor to a truly serious newspaper for altogether too long, albeit fully admitting to myself the fantasy of it all. To the extent of delving into what defunct names might be resurrected, a daydream sustained by hope that insight into advertising trading might provide a essential foothold. The realistic difficulty is that newspapers, ultimately are a consumer product, a fact we like to choose not to so directly see.., as you illustrate, above. As such they pander to tastes and seek to reinforce those tastes. Curiously, they hold out to be vehicles by which readers are informed as to the world, but they do seem all to fail any critical test for neutrality, bias, and in some examples good manners and even civility, traits which make them increasingly poor citizens. And a real constrain is bias by omission, and inclusiveness can be like opening a Greek-Russian-Thai-Indian-Mughul-Punjabi-Sechuan-Cantonese-Ethiopian-French-Jamaican soup canteen. It makes for confusing conversations with the waiter. There is also the perverse situation in which newspaper people take pleasure in being a endangered species, and the mental contortions that derive from that conceit are many. A vibrant mass press would require maybe too much adjustment and the very idea might awaken highly resourced interests. I often think a cold and objective view of the market, if you wanted to launch a new daily, has to consider that this endangered species conceit places a obligation on the entire incumbent industry to protect their assumed rights and set to destroy a newcomer with religious fervor. No other business quite has the barrier to entry a newspaper does, if you compare selling a new gizmo to facing off a array of established competitors able to devote the equivalent of vast advertising budgets to undermining your product, through modes ranging from gossipy personality tripe over contributors to “serious” stories of the viability of market entrants, and ultimately in direct criticism of editorial points. No less, the “advertising value” of that detracting comment is inseparable from being the “value content” of the competing papers which they sell as being a halo for their own advertisers. So the “advertising” arrayed against you is the undiluted stuff… what other promotion do you anticipate and set to read in pleasurable privacy? I think a new proper paper would have to be thought of like starting a F1 team: provided you are spending a cool billion for your fun, I think I’d want the race team as well, whilst I’m throwing money around like that. However, nobody has worked out how to wag the dog with money and gain what they want in F1, quite the way influence in media can be purchased…

Anyhow, back to F1… a attention I’m grateful to be able to pay, again..

Fully agree….good appointment…..always liked Stefano. And good to see him surviving the blood-letting at the Scuderia. Hope its a good indicator of him staying firmly in motorsport given his recent day job appointment at VAG ?

Any chance of an insightful piece on the apparent ‘power struggle’ within Mclaren ?

I don’t see it as a power struggle. RD was given the opportunity to run the team again and to find the money to buy the shares. If he cannot do that, the board will then decide what is best for the future.

I feel much of the luster F1 lacks, is because the very ores of the seam seem to rust. A seam is said to be “working” when it creaks in distress under pressure from the overburden. The veins and fundament of top flight racing all appears to be “working”, indeed.

Thanks for this one, Joe. What is wrong with F1 is not alone F1’s problem, nor do other series suffer only in the penumbra of F1. The apparent uniqueness, as publicly presented, of the top series, has not been exploited in isolation, but to my thought, often by divide and rule, and emasculatory fiat.

What worries me, is the possibility of silence, or a kind of willful ignorance, as in dysfunctional organizations, simply because the problems adhering to the sum total of top motorsport, have become too great, too broad. Does anyone have any clue how long remedial efforts, presuming miracle of enlightened decision making, might take? I like to believe even in my most jaundiced moment, I would recognize the culmination of a effort that results in a crisp fresh almost imperceptible draw of petrol- pheromones, slathered on like Brut cologne.

Much might make for melancholy. But looks like a good posting for Domenicali, where there’s much to be done, clearly. Re-establishing the compliments [of these series] is to my mind the greatest and most needed job. I dearly hope it will be a role in which he excels himself. I hope his appointment is part of a unfettered recognition of unabashed need.